Cruel
by Sebe
Summary: 3x16 coda. Bobby arrives after the hellhounds and surveys the damage left behind.


Summary: 3x16 coda. Bobby arrives after the hellhounds and surveys the damage left behind.

**Cruel**

Bobby entered the house cautiously, the weight of a stone in his stomach. He knew what he would find here and the thought made him want to run so he wouldn't have to see.

When his phone rang with Sam's number in the early hours of that morning, dread filled him and he barely managed to croak out "Sam?"

It was more than the person on the other line could do. Bobby had closed his eyes and listened to the choked sounds and half-stifled sobs. He clenched his teeth. He had to keep together. The kid would need that from him.

"Sam? I'm on my way. Stay on the line with me, boy." Still no words. There was a clatter and the choked noises sounded further away. "Sam? Sam? Answer me, dammit!"

Bobby had kept his phone on the whole drive even though all he heard was silence.

Just hearing it on the phone was horrible, but the walk in and seeing the destruction...the end of both of his boys in different ways…

He didn't want to be here, but he had to be.

The man took a deep breath and immediately had it punched out of him as he rounded the corner. Tears welled instantly.

Sam sat back on his knees, cradling his brother's body to him. He was staring down toward Dean, but his eyes were far away, swollen, red, and empty.

And Dean…

God, the kid was a mess. His chest was shredded, blood everywhere, sightless eyes fixed upward. Bobby allowed himself a quiet sob. The last thing Dean had seen had been his little brother and he tried to find some comfort in that.

Composing himself, Bobby approached the last living Winchester, pointedly ignoring the female body on the floor.

"Sam…"

He got nothing. This was gonna be bad, maybe worse than expected. Sam had seen everything. Bobby tried again, he kneeled down slowly next to Sam.

"Sam…"

And he stopped, because what could he say? Nothing was alright. Nothing was going to be alright. So he just kneeled there for a while, the man next to him still as a statue, as death itself that was laid out in his lap. The older man knew he had to do something or he would lose them both. Maybe he already had and was just too stubborn to admit it.

Bobby reached out tentatively to take Dean away from Sam. And that must have been exactly what Sam thought, that he was taking Dean away, because then the kid finally moved. Violently, in fact. His head snapped up and he snarled at Bobby, fresh tears sliding down his face as he clutched Dean closer.

"Okay, okay, kid." Bobby held up his hands. "Take it easy."

He didn't move again until he saw a flicker of recognition in Sam's once-vibrant eyes. Sam calmed then and he looked back at Dean, then at Bobby again and the hunter's heart twisted.

'_Fix him, fix him…'_ He could hear Sam pleading with a childish belief that his pseudo-father figure could fix everything and a desperation that came from having everything taken away from you one too many times.

Bobby remained silent, words were too much just now. Instead, he held Sam's gaze as he put a hand on the other's shaking shoulder and placed his other one on Dean's cold arm. Gently, he tried to pull Sam back.

"Let…" Not, _'let him go'_, because Sam wouldn't. Not now, not ever. "Let me take him, kid."

Sam looked panicked as Bobby eased Dean from his arms. His breath turned into short gasps of air. Sam twisted his fingers into Dean's jacket, clinging to the edge of contact as Bobby held his brother. The noise Sam made as he curled down over Dean was shattering to the older hunter. This keening sound that came from a place of such loss that not even Bobby could imagine.

Sam slowly laid his head on his big brother's still chest. Their shared blood smeared onto his face, Sam sobbed. Bobby was hard pressed not to join him, instead, he reached up to Dean's face; closing the eyes of the kid who had been dropped with his brother on Bobby's doorstep and into his life years ago. Bobby whispered his own silent goodbye as the last sliver of green disappeared.

It had been days and there was no change. Sam was checked out completely. Bobby supposed his mind wasn't able to process what had happened, what had been taken. He went where Bobby directed, followed basic instructions, but Sam wasn't there. He hadn't shed another tear since Bobby had found him (_them)_.

The man didn't know what to do. Sam would sit and not move for hours, hand clutching the amulet that now hung around his neck. Bobby tried everything he could think of to snap Sam out of it, but nothing worked. He didn't really expect it to. What those boys have, _(had)…_he couldn't fix this.

Until one afternoon on the fourth day. Bobby was in his study, keeping an eye on Sam while drinking glass after glass of whatever was in his bottom desk drawer.

It happened so quick, the man didn't have time to react.

Sam's eyes went wide and he made another of those gut-wrenching half sounds Bobby had heard as he leaned over his brother's still form. Sam jolted out of the chair and ran out the back door into the yard, the screen clanging behind him; Bobby, cursing and in hot pursuit.

Sam was fast, there was no way he was gonna catch him, but he was desperate not to let this one go. Turned out it wasn't an issue though. Sam got to the middle of the yard and just stopped. Stock still from a full run.

Panting, Bobby circled around to get a look at Sam's face. His eyes were wide, he was shaking and breathing in short little gasps.

"Sam." He tried. "Sam, what happened? What are you doing out here?"

No answers were forthcoming and Sam's shaking was steadily getting worse. Bobby was prepared to wait it out like he had back at the house.

And then Sam _screamed_. It was so sudden, that Bobby jumped. Blood-curling and desperate, packed with sorrow so deep that Bobby couldn't even imagine anything else that could make that noise.

Like his world had been taken away.

Sam collapsed in on himself, arms wrapped around his middle. He fell to his knees and kept screaming.

Over and over, the minutes dragged on and the pain in Sam's voice, the _grief_, was beyond palpable.

Bobby could do nothing to help, he knew that. But at the very least he could bear witness to Sam's pain, be the one who remembered. They had been here, they had saved people, they had suffered.

Sam kept screaming long after his voice was gone, his throat raw. Only air and the occasional crackled noise that broke through reverberating in the night.

It wasn't fair and Bobby knew that life wasn't fair, but this…these brothers were supposed to be together. Couldn't function properly without one another, like they were missing limbs. Bobby had seen it in Dean at Cold Oak and now he saw the same thing in Sam. His boys were never meant to be apart.

Sam and Dean were meant to live and hunt and exist together or follow each other side by side to what awaited next. No fear, because whatever came at them, they faced it together.

Now Bobby looked down at the half-soul left behind and morbidly wondered how long he would get to keep the last remnant of his pseudo-family before that bond that could never be broken stretched too taut and pulled Sam in.

Bobby hung his head and wept and Sam Winchester kept screaming.


End file.
